Bacon's 'Transition'

Warning--if you are not comfortable knowing where your food comes from I highly suggest skipping this post!

The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind for Phil and I, and even though we aren't finished yet, I wanted to write about it while I have a break in the process.

Back in April we got this cute little pig that we named Bacon.  She was a 4-H project that the family dog attacked.  I thought she was big at around 75 pounds, but after working on her today I realize that was puny by comparison.

Our biggest mistake was only getting one pig.  She was so lonesome--even though we'd go out there multiple times a day--that she'd get out.  Bacon didn't care about the electric fence and would wander out to see where we were, or what the chickens were doing.  Sadly, we couldn't let her free range unless we were right there.  That only happened when we were mucking out the kennel.  I feel really bad about this, because I want our animals to live as close to their natural habits as possible.  This mistake was like a snowball that lead to an avalanche.  Since we couldn't let her free range, we had to buy more feed.  More feed drove up our costs.  Being confined to a kennel without a companion led to Bacon being bored.  Her boredom drove her to break any feeding device we installed.  Finally we gave up trying to contain the food and just put it on the kennel floor.  This allowed her to instinctually root her food around and out of the kennel, causing a lot of wasted feed.  Which meant we were feeding her more.  Which drove up our costs.  Finally we said no more, she's close enough to butcher weight.  We were going to keep her until around labor day, but we just couldn't stand the awful circumstances both Bacon and our wallet was in.  She weighed in at 200 pounds, which really when I think about it is about a pound day that she added to her girth.

Yesterday we finished off the last of her food.  Last night out of either sheer loneliness, hunger, or knowing she was about to meet the freezer,  she broke out of the kennel.  It was terrifying to see a 200 pound pig barreling towards my garden, and then as I attempted to corral her back, run towards the neighbors'.  I've always said that I only run to save someones life, but I guess I'll do it to protect my food supply too! We got her bribed back in with bread, and Phil patched up the break.  Phil and I then mucked out the kennel one last time, washed her down, and finished gathering our supplies.  As the night slipped away, we reviewed our game plan for the next day, and set the alarm for five in the morning.

We were finished setting up by six, and shortly thereafter Phil did a perfect kill shot.  I knew that would be the hardest for me-- to witness the animal that we had tried our best to care for--to meet her end to sustain my own life.  It shook me up as anticipated, even though I had watched a video about the process, it was hard to watch the involuntary jerking, and subsequent tongue hanging out of the side of the mouth, so I left to blow my nose and dry my eyes.

strange to see this instead of our noisy pig

Now that Bacon was dead, I could shift my mind over to the task at hand, prepping her for the freezer.  Even though we had a pulley with a gambrel, I am still ridiculously sore from the physical exertion at this end of the process.

Bacon bled out and awaiting to be dunked in the 55 gallon steel drum

I knew that the dehairing process would be the most tedious part of the process (for me at least), but since I don't mind tedious it wasn't an issue.  Although out of all parts of the slaughtering process I found this the dirtiest since her hair would blow back on me, getting in my eyes, up my nose and generally making me itchy.

Next was the part of the process that Phil was most unsure about.  Degutting.  He's done deer with the aid of his hunting buddy, and I have done the chickens, so the lack of complete hands on experience was a bit nerve-racking.  I read as much as I could to familiarize myself with the process, and Phil watched videos.  Still, nothing can really prepare you as much as hands on experience!  It took a lot longer than I anticipated simply because it felt like we were flying blind.

Finally after only one hiccup (but a lot of great hands on anatomy for the kids!) we were finished.  At one pm our freezer looked like this:

We threw in the other half, and shut the door.  Then Phil said 'babe we did it'!  We gave each other bloody high fives and sweaty hugs.  A few hours later We prepped the kitchen for the butchering process.  The kids helped process Phil's deer last fall and were strangely excited to help again.



We have learned a lot through this experience.  We know that we would get two pigs if we do it again (Phil is gunho, I'm not ready to commit).  I said we needed to have sandwiches and snacks on hand for quick eating.  Going from five until almost two by the time I cleaned up without food, while doing such physical work, and nursing a baby during breaks, left me feeling sick and shaky.  I also voted for either doing the slaughter on one day with the butchering the next or to order pizza so my kitchen doesn't look like this.  Trying to cook and eat food while putting up the pork didn't work so well today, despite my preparedness with the crockpot.

not a pretty kitchen at the moment, just keeping it real!

I'm looking forward to what our final poundage is, and to see a freezer filled (albeit not full) with our hard work.  Hopefully homegrown pig will be just as mind-blowing to our tastebuds as our roasted roosters have been!